Road Dogg on His Role in WWE Creative & His Praise of WWE’s Writing and Production Teams for Shows

As noted before, WWE Hall of Famer “Road Dogg” Brian James recently was promoted as the new co-lead writer of WWE’s SmackDown brand.

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured James as the guest. One of the topics discussed included James’ thoughts about his current role in WWE and him being more of a creative consultant for the company.

“I have no idea (what my role is at WWE). I could care less to tell you the truth (he laughed). So really, I’m still in charge of creative of live events. But now we have scaled live events back. Domestically, especially this coming year, we’re gonna find out where our sweet spot is but, a lot of overseas live events coming up this year. There’s huge money there. The business side of things right now are so far beyond what they have ever been before, even Attitude (Era). All that stuff is just putting to shame what the business is doing now with Hunter at the Helmsley. I know, I’m sorry. I’m dad. I’m a granddad.

Honestly dude, I’m a creative consultant. That goes across the board, when it comes to wrestling. I don’t think I could be a creative consultant for I.B.M. (he laughed). But I can do it for WWE, you know?

James also gave his thoughts about his praise of WWE’s current writing team under WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s leadership.

“The writing team in the WWE is undoubtedly one of the most talented groups of people I’ve ever worked with, that I’ve ever been around. And their tenacity — and they’ve been through it all, they’ve weathered it all, and they’re here, and they’re good at their jobs. They’re a funny gaggle. I love nothing better than sitting in there with them.

They are an entertaining group, man. Raw and SmackDown, both those teams, it’s fun to sit in on those meetings. Because you have fun and you create great content at the same time. And man, that’s right up my wheelhouse.”

James also gave his praise of WWE’s production team for shows.

“I think as a company we have found our groove, man. And firing on all cylinders. And now, from a production standpoint — look, nobody does what we do. We make beautiful wrestling. I’ve been saying that for 10 years now because that’s what we do: we make beautiful wrestling. And now we have nine or 10 new cameras. A drone inside the arena that we’re flying. A cable, the wire like the NFL has. Like, so many new camera angles to play with. And our production value is only going to go up from here. Hunter keeps saying we’re just getting started — and man, if that’s the truth, I don’t know where we end up.”

James also gave his thoughts about the current status of WWE under Endeavor’s ownership.

“It’s a machine, man. And look, there were some hiccups at first, you know, during the turnover. But I think they were just hiccups, man,” he said. “Everything just ran smoothly and new people stepped into new jobs and everything. But because, you know, Endeavor and UFC already had some staff. So if we had double time staff, then you don’t need all that, you know? So there were some changes and some people disappearing that you remember seeing and you like seeing. But such a streamlined, well-oiled machine on every level.

And it’s just — man, it’s impressive to watch, almost scary to be caught up in. Because look, I come from my father being the Booker in Southeastern Championship Wrestling and my brothers being the champions. I come from mom and pops wrestling. And to an extent, even the old regime was still mom and pops wrestling. Even though it was publicly traded, it was still one man’s vision and one man’s decision. And now it’s not that way anymore. Now it’s, like I said [an] open forum of ideas and all of the stuff at our disposal. The sky is the limit, man.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com, F4WOnline.com